63 



COLUBER GETULV^.—Limueus. 



Plate X. 



Characters. Head small; snout rather truncated; colour above beautiful 

 shining raven-black, with about twenty-two white narrow transverse bars, bifur- 

 cating on the flanks to form a nearly continuous waving white line; tail barred, 

 but without lateral lines; abdomen raven-black, with a shadowy tinge of white 

 in certain lights. Scut. ab. 215 — subcaud. sc. 49. 



Synontmes. Chain Snake, Catesby, Carolina, &c., vol. ii. p. 52, pi. lii. 

 Coluber getulus, Lin., Syst. Nat, torn. i. p. 382. 

 La cliaine, LacSp., Hist, des Serpens, torn. ii. p. 300. 

 Coluber getulus, Gniel., ed. Syst. Nat. Lin., torn. i. pai't iii. p. 1106. 

 Coluber getulus, Latr., Hist. Nat. Rept., torn. iv. p. 174. 

 Coluber getulus, Daiid., Hist. Nat. des Rept., torn. vi. p. 314, pi. Ixxii. 

 Coluber getulus, Shaio, Gen. Zool., vol. iii. part ii. p. 467. 

 Pseudo-elaps getulus, Fitz., Neue Class, der Rept., p. 56. 

 Coluber getulus, Harl., Med. and Phys. Res., p. 122. 

 Chain Snake, Thunder Snake, King Snake, Vidgo. 



Description. The head is small, short, and rather rounded at the snout; the 

 vertebral plate is regularly pentagonal, broad in front and pointed behind; the supe- 

 rior orbital is oblong quadrilateral, narrow before, broader behind, and somewhat 

 projecting e.xternally over the eye; the occipital plates are large and pentagonal; 

 the frontals are irregularly hexagonal, with their naiTOwest border downward and 

 outwards; the anterior frontals are regularly quadrilateral, a little broader without 

 and narrower within; the rostral plate is broad, short, truncated in front, and of 

 pentagonal form, rounded above and slightly concave below; there are two 



